Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher Read Free Book Online

bitterest defeats, and though the First Lord and his Legion had scoured the valley of Marat, nothing could bring his son and heir back from the grave. Alerans died. The next First Lord died. There was no shortage of hard feelings between Alerans and their barbarian neighbors.

    And yet, there were the peddlers and merchants, doing business with the p. 29 Marat as they might in any town in the Realm. Many horses grazed lazily over the plain leading deeper into Marat territory, and Amara could see two dozen massive gargants doing the same. A group of perhaps a dozen wolves loitered in the morning sunshine on a mound of weatherworn boulders half a mile away. The Horse and Gargant tribes were, more than any other Marat, allies of the Alerans—or more precisely, allies of Bernard, Count of Calderon, and so their presence was understandable. But the Wolf tribe had struck her as the crudest and most bloodthirsty of the Marat, and had invariably been a foe of the Realm.

    Times, it would seem, were changing, perhaps for the better, and she felt a fierce surge of pride that Bernard had been one of the people responsible for that change.

    Amara tried to remain relaxed and calm, but despite her efforts, she found herself hundreds of yards ahead of her escort. The sentry over the gate called up a relaxed challenge and waved her in before she’d finished giving her name. After years of visiting the Count of Calderon, most of the legionares regularly stationed there knew her face by now, especially the remaining veterans of Giraldi’s century. Those men, cut down to a bare sixty serving legionares, were the only century in the history of the Realm to have twice received the scarlet stripe of the Order of the Lion for valor, and they enjoyed sporting the red blazon on both legs of their uniform trousers with the same casually false disregard other legionares did their weaponry and armor.

    Amara swept down into the courtyard, willing her wind fury, Cirrus, to bring her to earth still moving, and stepped with unconscious grace into a smooth trot that carried her across the courtyard and up the stairs that led to the Count’s office and chambers. She went up the stairs two at a time, though she knew it made her look like an overeager girl bound for the arms of her lover—but she couldn’t manage any more than that.

    Before she reached the top of the stairs, the door above her opened and Bernard appeared in the doorway. He was a large man, broad-shouldered and strong, his dark hair and beard, both clipped short in Legion fashion, salted with threads of premature silver. His strong, weather-darkened face broke into a wide smile, and he caught Amara up in his arms as though she weighed no more than a newborn lamb. She twined her arms around his neck and buried her face into the space between his throat and his shoulder, holding tight and breathing in the scent of him—leather and fresh-cut hay and woodsmoke.

    He promptly carried her inside, into his spare, utilitarian office, and she nudged the door shut with her foot in passing.

    p. 30 As soon as they were alone, she caught his face between her hands and kissed his mouth, slowly, luxuriously, thoroughly. He returned the kiss with slowly building heat for several moments before breaking it off to murmur, “Are you sure this is the best way to conceal our marriage?”

    Amara looked up at him, smiling, then nuzzled close and closed her teeth on the skin of his throat, a quick, delicate little bite. “What married couple,” she murmured, her fingers already undoing the buttons of his tunic, “behaves like this?”

    His voice deepened into a rough growl, and she felt him shift her weight to hold on to one arm, while the other slid along her thigh. “But no one’s watching us now.”

    “I like to be thorough,” she replied, lips moving against his skin, her breath coming more swiftly. “It’s the safest thing.”

    Her husband’s growl deepened into a rumble, and he abruptly